Meanwhile in the Stalino Area he only makes one attack with an all infantry force. I must say this surprises me as I expected him to make a major push here. Perhaps my heavy line of forts here dissuaded him, too bad.

We have now completed Turn 51 (June 4, 1942) and I am awaiting Saper's T52. We have had nothing but mud in The North Soviet Zone so no attacks there. However, we have had clear weather in the Central, South and Eurpopean Zones the last two turns.

Below is the screen shot from T50 of the situation East of Kharkov. On T51 he simply expanded a further hex East.

As you can see Saper did suceesfully assault me across the Kerch Peninusula (after several softening attacks) and is slowly pushing me back here as well. But I am getting some kicks in of my own, so at least I am making him pay for this real estate. His attack is spearheaded by The DR Motorized, the 25th Motorized, the 22nd Airlanding and the 5th Mountain divisions. I have reinforced the area with 4 Cavalry Corps.

Here is the OOB, Losses and Production information from the start of my T51. On this turn I built 6 Guards Infantry Corps. I don't plan on building too many more prior to January 43 unless circumstances are favourable.

I have changed my defensive plan once again. I am fairly confident that Saper's major offensive will be in the North Soviet Zone. Accordingly I have allocated my best units to the central part of the Map as local reserves, primarily in the Tula to Voronezh Area, and now have a very small Strategic Reserve. However, These local reserves are either on or within one hex of rail lines, so they can be moved North or South quickly if required. We'll see how this works out for me.

With resepct to support units for my Corps I have been building lots of Sapper Regiments. But can anyone tell me why these regiments are to be prefeered to the Engineer-Sapper Brigades? The brigades have more Sapper Squads so I thought would be better, but the conventional wisdom seems to be to build the regiments.

If his game with Kamil is an indicator, you can expect him to press hard across the Kerch peninsula into the Kuban. I would not hesitate to keep sending what troops you can spare down there to counter his move.

If his game with Kamil is an indicator, you can expect him to press hard across the Kerch peninsula into the Kuban. I would not hesitate to keep sending what troops you can spare down there to counter his move.

I have two STAVKA Armies there now, but he continues to make slow progress. Since he is not combining this attack with a major assault towards Rostov I don't really know what he hopes to gain.

Turn 52 was a bit the opposite weather wise from the last two turns; clear in the North Soviet Zone and mud in the Central and South Zones. As a result Saper launches a 3 pronged attack in the area from Orel to Voronezh. No disasters to report as he only managed to punch through the first line or two of my defences. I'm actually a bit surprised at how weak his units are. I was expecting him to have several panzer and even infantry divisions with CVs of 15+, but in fact he only has a few panzer/motorized in the 13 CV range and his best infantry divisions have CVs of 7 to 9 (except for the mountain and airlanding divisions).

He has a total of 33 panzer/motorized divisions in the area from Orel to Voronezh and another 2 in the Kerch Peninsula (well I guess actually they are across the strait from the Kerch Peninsula, but I don't know what that area is called). Does anyone know if that is all of them?

Below is a closeup of the 1st prong of his attack near Orel. The rifle division circled in red is a mistake of mine; I accidentally moved it through 2 enemy controlled hexes so it didn't have enough movement to get back to it's own lines. I was able to counterattack one of his panzer/motorized stacks in this area.

The screenshot below shows the other 2 prongs of his attack. As I have my best units in this area (including all 6 of my rifle corps) I was able to make several successful attacks on the stacks of his lead panzer units, even though these stacks had CVs of 18 to 28.

I have the morale soft factor turned on and the other thing that surprises me is that many of Saper's best units are no longer elite.

I think you need a bit more down by Kerch and some garrisons digging in Novorossisk and Krasnodar. You're relying entirely on a one hex choke point that is barely fortified and the moment he busts past that it's going to open up down there. I would consider tasking the area with a whole other army and putting both of these under a Front command. Otherwise things are looking good and I'm favorably impressed by how well the Red Army recovered here despite a not amazing replacement situation. Over 7 million going into summer 42 is quite respectable. Looks like you fought the blizzard on the cheap and didn't burn yourself out, which is exactly right imo.

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana He has a total of 33 panzer/motorized divisions in the area from Orel to Voronezh and another 2 in the Kerch Peninsula (well I guess actually they are across the strait from the Kerch Peninsula, but I don't know what that area is called).

The Bad News: The Weather was clear in all 4 Zones. It is only June 18th and (unless I am once again misreading the Random Weather Table) the odds of this happening was less than 0.5%. Maybe Saper will be as lucky with the weather in 1942 as I was in 1941.

The Good News: No disasters to report.

The Bad News: I didn't achieve a single "Held" result against Saper's attacks. Meanwhile of my 11 Counterattacks I only won 7.

The Good News: Despite losing all those battles the casualty loss ratio isn't too bad. Also 2 of my 7 wins were against a couple of Panzer Stacks.

Below is the situation in the North where the Finnish Army has finally made an appearance.

I contemplated following Flavius's advice, but the problem with moving a Front down here now and joining the STAVKA Army HQs to it is that all of my Fronts are already filled with Army HQs. So I would first have to transfer some of these armies to STAVKA, and that would cost a lot of APs. Alternatively, I could switch the armies (and their attached divisions) I have here with the Armies already attached to the Front, but that would be a lot of reorganization. So I have settled for moving more STAVKA divisions to the Taman Peninsula as reinforcements.

So far as Front capacity goes, I'm willing to overload them up to 5 armies apiece. By 1943 things catch up and they can manage that many.

Taman looks ok but...garrisons, man, garrisons. Don't let him cheese his way into Krasnodar or Novorossisk with an airdrop. And cities anywhere near the front ought to be garrisoned on general principles. Stick something in there, even a brigade. They'll dig in quick now, too, since he's close enough to trigger urban labor.

Honestly, your army is too good in both size and quality for this to be interesting. You have done well yourself and you've also had help from saper in that he choose not to engage ASAP after the blizzard. The no-attrition period is the source for at least 500k of you OOB as well as some 100's of kARM in you pool and also probably some of the quality increase of the units.

This is in no way intended to take away your achievement - you played the situation as it occurred and played it well. It's more a lesson to be learned for the Axis side. One cannot allow the Bear to hibernate undisturbed.

As to the game, I concur with Flaviusx regarding the back door and would in addition suggest that you scrounge up an Air Army and some Airbases loaded with FB groups. Also, (I usually try hard not to repeat myself, but) you can most certainly afford to take some/all mountain divisions away from the main front and base them in the Caucasus Mountains. If disaster strikes at Novorossisk, you want them there already.

Yeah, attrition is no joke, and can account for 30-40k in losses each turn. So reducing that to zero or near enough is a huge jump in effective replacements. Instead of 65-70k a turn net, you're going up to 100k or about a 50% increase. That's not taking into account improvements in morale and armaments.

I was wondering how on earth you managed to get your numbers up so high going into summer of 42, and this explains it pretty much by itself. So indeed the Axis must contrive to hug the bear and not give him a free pass in the spring rasputitsa.